Video transcript

(jazzy music) Female: That sheep in the foreground looks so happy and so adorable. You can see the light
right around his ears. You can almost see his nose twitching. William Holman Hunt painted
him so realistically he seems alive. Male: We're in Tate
Britain and we're looking at Hunt's Our English Coasts, otherwise known as Strayed Sheep. It's one of the spectacular
pre-Raphaelite paintings. Female: The Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood was formed in 1848, so this is only four years
later, and we see that minute attention to detail
that's so characteristic of the Pre-Raphaelites;
that Ruskinian idea of truth to nature, really
painting what you see. Male: Ruskin loved this painting. In a critique, he spoke about the way that this was the first
time in painting's history that the sun's light had been
captured in an authentic way. Female: One art historian
has said that this painting is about light, but it's also
about a lot of other things, too. Male: It has such a curious,
such a radical composition. You've got the southern English coast where the cliffs dive down
to the English Channel, and you've got this
flock of untended sheep, or seemingly untended sheep. Female: Right. We don't
see a shepherd anywhere. Male: But only on the right side. They seem to be moving up and down in this wonderful undulating landscape. Female: They seem very
innocent and very playful. Male: And curious. Female: A hint of wondering around. One seems to be lost in some vegetation in the foreground, and others are lying on the ground enjoying the
late afternoon sunshine. We know that Hunt painted
this on plein air, that is, that he painted it outside. Male: This is early
for plein air painting. Female: Plein air
painting was made possible because artists were
able, for the first time, to get oil paint in tubes
that made it possible to go outside with your
paint and your supplies and paint outside. Male: This particular spot was considered really picturesque. It was a tourist location. It was a place that
people visited regularly. Female: And that artists painted, too. Male: I think in 1852 when
this painting was made, it had a different kind of significance. Female: In 1852, we know that there was particular concern for
the safety of Enlgland from foreign invasion,
the safety of the coasts, from foreign invasion. Male: England has a historical
preoccupation with invasion. This is an island nation where the shores had been safe a very long time, but very much tied in,
woven into the consciousness of every British citizen is the critical historical moment when
the Normans from France invaded England in 1066
and actually landed in Hastings, which is very close to where this painting was made. Female: In much more recent memory, for the Victorians, was Napoleon, and the Duke of Wellington's
defeat of Napoleon. Male: In fact, the Duke of Wellington was actively, at this moment, talking about the vulnerability of the English coasts. So now there is a new Napoleonic threat. Now, Napoleon III had seized
power only the year before, in France, and the English
were very skittish about this. Female: The British were not sure what Anglo-French relations were going to be with this new Napoleon in power, so this was definitely
a moment where there was fear for the safety of England. Male: We can see just
to the left, of course, the English Channel itself,
and just across the way, almost visible, is France. So there is this sense that that innocence of those sheep is also
about the vulnerability of the populace of England. Female: No one's protecting them. No one's tending them. What's especially fascinating
is that when this painting was exhibited three years later in France at the Universal Exposition in Paris, Hunt changed the name
from Our English Coasts to Strayed Sheep. Male: A little more innocuous from the French perspective, right? Female: Right. Not a kind of nationalistic Our English Coast but a more generic idea of strayed sheep, which of course has its own meanings as well. Male: Strayed Sheep has
a Christian reference, the idea of the flock, the idea of the followers of Christ, but maybe not following all that strictly. Female: They're straying from their path. Also, Hunt may have been referring to the way that there were internal conflicts in the Church of England
and that meant that perhaps the Church of
England wasn't taking care of its flock particularly
well at that time either. Male: I think for Hunt it was important that there were multiple possibilities, and in a sense give this
painting a kind of depth and a kind of power that goes well beyond the simple landscape. Female: We see that
Pre-Raphaelite interest in truth to nature
especially in the flowers on the left, where Hunt
seems to have painted every single leaf and blade of grass and each petal on every flower. Male: He complained that
the weather that summer was just rotten and,
in fact, didn't finish this painting until November because there were so many storms. Female: There weren't that many sunny days to go outside and paint. Male: That's right. But I think that reminds
us of what it meant, the kind of commitment to
what he was actually seeing. Female: And that's so
different than academic practice where there were formulas for representing things
instead of taking things directly observed from nature. Male: This was meant to be real and honest and to strip away all of
that academic tradition. Female: It's incredibly tactile. There's the fir, the
sunlight, the vegetation, even the smell of being near the beach. For all its moralizing,
it's a really sensual image. (jazzy music)